


Cutthroat kindness

by notveryhandy



Series: Whoops you died! [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, earthshock, i think that speaks for itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notveryhandy/pseuds/notveryhandy
Summary: And look at it this way: perhaps death is better, but he is gone no matter what.
Series: Whoops you died! [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712161
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Cutthroat kindness

The Doctor does not cry, not that Adric is there to know that. No, Adric is on the floor and blinking, dust filling the air and his lungs and just about everything in sight. How is he alive? How did he not burn up or blow up on that awful ship?

“Doctor?” he asks, and of course that is the first thing he thinks of. “Doctor?” He inhales a lung full of smoke for his troubles. It sounds hoarse. Hopeless. His eyes water and his throat burns, and now he understands the phrase ‘a fate worse than death.’

That is not what this is, not yet, but in time it may well be.

Adric stands up and looks around the wreckage. “Doctor?” he repeats again, desperately. That is the first thing he can think of. With the Doctor, everything is safe. The Doctor is selfless. (Or maybe the Doctor is selfish, for making this happen, for making the first thing on his mind to find him.)

* * *

The Doctor does not move, the Doctor does not cry. There is only shock, quiet and infirm. The air trembles. Maybe there are people in the background, grieving. They are not here in his mind.

The Doctor does not react at all - or if he does, it is imperceptible and almost invisible. There are choked sobs and desperate pleas but he is barely registering Tegan and Nyssa. He’s barely registering anything at all.

Adric is gone. This is a fact now. There was a smiling boy a day ago; now there are memories and a cracked photograph hanging on the wall.

The Tardis hums. Reassuring, perhaps.

She’s there, but Adric isn’t, and that is all he can think of-

Adric _isn’t._

* * *

Adric stands up and knows there is no way out of here. He’ll live his life out on this prehistoric Earth, will never see the universe again.

Will never even get to say goodbye. The Doctor, though, will come back. Must come back. There is no way the Doctor would abandon him. The Doctor is brave. The Doctor is a hero.

The Doctor is on the other side of the universe already, but Adric doesn’t know that.

He slumps down in the scorched and dusty cave - well, that’s something - and traces a shape into the dust. A smiley face. Ordinary. Innocent.

Nobody in Earth’s future will ever know him, most likely. He will simply-

Vanish, vanish from the universe like there was never anything there.

Oh, to see him now.

* * *

The Doctor is on Gallifrey, because the occasional visit is not going to hurt. The Doctor is not facing his companions, because that _is_ going to hurt and the Doctor, despite what so many say-

Is a coward. So he raps on the door of Romana’s office, and does not think about the fact that this is entirely the wrong point in their timelines, and then the future President of Gallifrey opens the door. She deserves to know. (She deserves so much, Romana.)

He nearly walks away right then, but Romana calls his name and now he had to stay, doesn't he.

Doesn’t he. It is not a question. “Doctor?” she asks, and either it has been a while or it has been no time at all, because her eyes are wide. “Doctor, what is it?”

Clever Romana. “I... it’s Adric.”

“Oh, what has he done now?”

That stings. “He...”

“Out with it, Doctor, before I close this door in your face.”

So she’s changed. Well, everyone has. “He died.”

And there it is. And there they are. And he spins on his heel, strides out of the room, before Romana, too, can judge him.

She’d be damn right to do so.

* * *

Adric has been here far too long now. He cannot remember - cannot recall anything beyond _it has been a long time._ That is not helpful at all and he knows that, anyway. He is starving now. Thirsty. A mess.

The clothes he’d tumbled down here with are singed and rotten and torn, barely fit to be called more than ragged scraps of cloth. He wipes a hand across his face to clear his chosen, and it comes off muddied and bloodied. He hasn’t seen a mirror in...

How long?

That is a good question. 

How long?

He stares at the cave wall, too weak to move.

How long?

He does not have an answer.

* * *

The Doctor is alone now. Perhaps. Or there is Rose. The point is, the Time Lords are gone. There is no going back from here. He thinks maybe he will go somewhere different today. The Tardis, well, of course she agrees.

Rose can stay at home for a day. “So, old girl, what do you say?”

_Earth,_ she hums.

“‘Course. I love a bit of Earth every now and then.”

_Don’t be silly, you always love Earth._

“True. Take me where you like, then.”

And so she does. The Doctor opens the Tardis doors onto a post-apocalyptic wasteland. “Cheery, eh?”

No comment. He wanders around for a while, finding no fascinating ruins or hostile alien species. It’s all very dull, isn’t it?

Eventually he finds a cave. Eventually he wanders in, and does not like what he sees.

And he’d moved on, but this is something different. Adric, curled up in the corner. Clearly not well, despite any lies his mind can concoct. Breathing shallowly, ribs sticking out and caked in dirt.

He fights the urge to throw up, and instead moves closer, gently. Reaches out a hand. “It’s me.” He’s whispering. “The Doctor. Sh, don’t speak.”

Worse than he thought. Actually, now that he looks closer... there’s no way Adric is going to survive, and what kind of universe does he live in where one death is replaced with... another. No happy ending, just a dead boy.

* * *

The Doctor does not want to go back there, but the least he can do is a proper send-off. And if he’s the only one there, well, that’s his choice. Maybe this is the wrong option, maybe, maybe. A wrong help, an aid that isn’t wanted.

It’s tearing him apart, this cutthroat kindness, and Rose must see that. Rose does not know what is going on, because there are so many people to mourn here that _Adric_ does not even begin to cover it. He should tell Tegan, and Nyssa. Could. Would.

Except he doesn’t. There’s Rose and an empty room and keening sobs, and he knows Romana should know too, but she-

She went to her grave a hero, and she’ll never, ever know.

Nobody needs to know. Nobody remembers Adric (or so he hopes, or so he does not hope because hoping someone would not be remembered is utterly horrific).

Nobody wants to know. It’s worse this way, it’s not even _heroic,_ and is that the best he can grant people? Being remembered as a martyr?

He hopes so badly it is not.

He knows that, ultimately, it is.


End file.
